


Unintended Consequences

by Transposable_Element



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Calormen, Cultural Differences, F/M, Rare Pairings, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-29
Updated: 2014-06-14
Packaged: 2018-01-27 02:02:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1710926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Transposable_Element/pseuds/Transposable_Element
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Originally this was a one-off called "The Sign of the Pheasant." I've changed the name of this story because after I wrote what is now the first chapter it went off in an unexpected direction. "Unintended Consequences" describes both the story and the story-writing process....</p>
    </blockquote>





	1. Sign of the Pheasant

**Author's Note:**

> Originally this was a one-off called "The Sign of the Pheasant." I've changed the name of this story because after I wrote what is now the first chapter it went off in an unexpected direction. "Unintended Consequences" describes both the story and the story-writing process....

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Tashbaan on a diplomatic mission, Edmund delivers a message and blows off some steam, not necessarily in that order. Takes place about two years after the events of _A Horse and His Boy_.

It was another glittering evening in the Tisroc’s palace, but Edmund privately thought that a party with no dancing was hardly a party at all. When tarkheenas were among the guests there weren’t even dancing girls.

Early in the evening Edmund saw the person he was looking for, but he didn’t seek her out. He was reasonably sure they would meet serendipitously, and if not, he could always change his plans.

He and Lord Dal were talking with Bandar, a Calormene trade official, when a showily dressed little tarkheena glided up beside the official and said “Darling, how lovely to see you! My husband isn’t here tonight—he had to go out to the estate for a few days, you know—but he asked me to remind you about…oh dear, what was it? Some kind of meeting you had, I’m sure you remember it. I’m so stupid about these things.” Bandar looked wearily at her and said “Yes, of course, Tarkheena.” She smiled at him, glanced at the other two men, and raised her eyebrows. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said. “Your Majesty, may I present the Tarkheena Lasaraleen. Tarkheena, I’m sure you recognize our honored guests, His Royal Majesty King Edmund of Narnia, and the Lord Dal.”

“Of course,” she said.

“I think we’ve met before, Tarkheena,” said Edmund. 

“I’m surprised you remember me, your majesty,” she said, looking pleased. She extended her hand, offering it to him.

He smiled perfunctorily, reached out as though to take her hand, stopping with his fingertips a good few inches short, and bent over it. The northern practice of hand-kissing was in vogue in Tashbaan, but of course one did not actually touch the offered hand, let alone kiss it. “How could I forget?”

Lasaraleen drew back her hand and looked up at him with a coquettish smile and a tilt of her head. Lord Dal knew that Edmund hated this sort of thing, but before he could think of a tactful way to extract him from the conversation, Bandar said “That reminds me of something I wanted to ask you about, Lord Dal,” and dragged him away. Edmund could hear that they were talking about the Terebinthian embargo. He suspected that Bandar wanted to get away before Edmund and Dal left him alone with the tarkheena.

Lasaraleen was talking, but Edmund wasn’t listening carefully. He responded automatically as he covertly surveyed the room to get an idea of who might notice him with her. Then he decided it didn’t matter much; she was a notorious flirt. “Let’s get a breath of air,” he said, after Dal and Bandar had moved well out of earshot. 

“What a lovely idea!” 

They walked through a nearby archway out onto a small balcony. The lights of Tashbaan were spread out before them. The city was most beautiful at night, when its more unpleasant corners were invisible. He turned and looked at her. She smiled at him expectantly.

“I have a message for you,” he said quietly. “But it’s very sensitive. Is there a place we could meet privately?”

“Why yes, I do know a place. Tomorrow night?”

“I don’t know that I can get away tomorrow. What about tonight?”

“Wellll,” she said. This presented certain difficulties. “If it’s really the only way. But we can’t leave here at the same time, someone might notice.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Quick, here comes Lord Dal.”

“Cypress Court, Sign of the Pheasant,” she said, rapidly and distinctly, but without altering the rather vacant expression on her face. “Give the doorman the name Zardesh. Go to the room with the seven-pointed star over the door. After you leave the hall I’ll wait half an hour and then I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

He nodded. Then she looked past him and lifted her chin, as though she’d just noticed Lord Dal approaching. Edmund turned around. “….Ah, Lord Dal, there you are. Excuse me Tarkheena.” He bowed, pretending not to see the hand she proffered again, and walked off with Dal, leaving her on the balcony.

“Where were you, Dal? I thought you’d never come save me from that tiresome little flirt,” Edmund said, under his breath. 

Dal smiled. “Sorry…But Bandar was very insistent.” 

“I know, I know.” Edmund sighed.

Dal looked at him. Edmund did his best to appear fatigued. Apparently he succeeded, because Dal said, “Sire, if you’re tired, I think I can manage here.”

“Does it show that much?” Edmund asked. He rubbed his forehead. “I do have a headache. If you really don’t mind, I think I’ll go up.”

“I’ll make your excuses, Sire.”

Lasaraleen, who was still on the balcony pretending to enjoy the view, watched the king out of the corner of her eye. Several people managed to buttonhole him as he drifted toward the door, so it took him another 20 minutes to exit the hall. Once he was gone, she went to get herself a drink and almost stopped to talk to two of the princesses; but then she thought that they might have seen her with the barbarian king, and she wanted to put as much distance as possible between that encounter and anybody who knew her. So instead she took her drink downstairs onto the terrace and joined a group of rather dull provincial tarkheenas, none of whom she knew well, chatting with them while she waited. After a while she excused herself and sent one of the palace servants to fetch her slave Dorkut, saying she had an errand for him. In addition to it being dangerous for a lady to walk alone in Tashbaan, it would look very odd indeed for her to go anywhere without an escort. This meant there had to be at least one person she trusted absolutely. Luckily, she knew certain incriminating things about Dorkut’s past, which gave her a hold over him, and he had a severe stammer, so he was unlikely to let anything slip accidentally. Nobody was perfectly safe, but he was as safe as it got.

Edmund found the corridor that led to the guest wing, started down it, then climbed a short flight of stairs. After a little wandering around, he found what he was looking for—one of the palace’s many side doors. As he’d often observed, the palace was completely indefensible, but of course that didn’t matter so much when the city itself was impenetrable. With a wink, he told the sleepy-looking guard that he was going out to look for some better company. “Not a word, eh?” he said. The guard nodded, bored. There were several brothels within spitting distance of the palace; this sort of thing must happen all the time.

The address was not far from the palace, and Edmund found it without trouble. He gave the doorman the name Zardesh, and the man gestured toward a short corridor. The door with the seven-pointed star was at the very end. He opened it and used the light from the hallway to find a lamp and light it. The room was small and windowless, but luxurious, with a large, soft-looking curtained bed. The air was scented with incense. As he had expected, this was where Lasaraleen met her lovers. Edmund laughed quietly.

When he heard her in the corridor, he opened the door and caught her by the waist, pulling her inside. She gave a little squeal and threw her arms around his neck. She kicked the door shut behind her and they fell against it.

“You drive me mad,” he said (and in a corner of his mind he cringed and thought, Dear God, did I actually say that?). He slid one hand up and down her back, trying to find where the bodice fastened.

“Careful, let me do it,” she laughed. “You’ll tear it, and then _what_ will I tell the laundress?”

“Sorry,” he said. “I’ve been imagining this for two years.” 

“Have you?” she asked, pulling away for a moment to look at him. “You _darling_ man…” 

“If anybody interrupts us this time, there will be blood, I swear it….”

She kissed him and said “No interruptions this time. I’ve learned a thing or two since then.” While she was busily undoing various fastenings, he pulled off his tunic. Most of her garments slid to the floor in diaphanous layers. He picked her up and tossed her onto the bed. 

She landed with a soft thump and giggled. “You _are_ a barbarian!” 

He bared his teeth. If she wanted rough and tumble, that was fine with him.

***

Some time later she got around to asking if he really did have a message for her. 

“Yes, but there’s not much to it. It’s from your friend Aravis.”

She sat up. “Aravis! Do you know where she is?”

He nodded. “I can’t tell you where she is, but she wanted you to know that she’s safe and well.”

“You could have told me that on the balcony.”

He ran a finger down her spine.

She lay back down. “…but I’m glad you didn’t.” She snuggled up to him. “What did she tell you about me?”

“Well, let’s see. She said that you’re a terrible flirt….”

“True.”

“That you pretend to be empty-headed and frivolous, but you’re actually quite shrewd…”

“Really? What an extraordinary thing to say!”

“She also said that you took some serious risks to help her get out of Tashbaan….”

“Ugh, I don’t even like to think about that.”

“You did ask.”

“I suppose so….And has Aravis found herself a beautiful barbarian husband?”

He considered for a moment how to answer this. “Well, in a way. Girls don’t marry as young in the north as they do here, so it’ll be a few years yet before she even betrothed to…this fellow. But it’s clear that they’ll make a match of it eventually.” It occurred to him that this was a good opening to ask something he’d been worrying about. “Speaking of girls getting married so young—how old are you?”

She pretended to be offended. “Didn’t anybody ever tell you never to ask a lady that question?”

“I’m just trying to find out if you’re a lady or a girl.”

“It’s a little late for such scruples, don’t you think?”

“Please tell me…”

“Well…do you know how old Aravis is?”

“Yes.”

“I’m two years older. Does that satisfy you?”

“Yes.” That meant that Lasaraleen was 16 or 17: young, but not a child. That was a relief. Two years ago it hadn’t occurred to him to wonder. She was, after all, a married woman. But then Aravis had mentioned that they were friends, and it had occurred to him that tarkheenas sometimes married as young as 11 or 12. Lasaraleen hadn't looked that young, but appearances could be deceiving.

“How much longer will you be here?” she asked wistfully. “Do you think there will be time to meet again? My husband comes back in a few days, and after that I doubt I’ll be able to manage it.”

“I think I can get away tomorrow night.”

“But at the party you said—”

“I didn’t want to wait.”

She looked at him in irritation; then she took hold of one of the tassels hanging from the bed curtain and hit him with it several times. “Honestly, your majesty! If you only knew!”

He laughed, fending off the tassel. “I think you can call me Edmund now.”

“No, no, better not to get in the habit. One of us might slip. Why do you think I call everyone ‘darling’?”

“Clearly you’ve had more experience than I with this sort of thing, Tarkheena.”

“Really? I doubt that.” 

In fact, he had no experience at all with this particular sort of intrigue. At Cair Paravel there were too many eyes on him even to contemplate an assignation. With nymphs in the western woods it wasn’t necessary to hide anything. And in Galma everybody knew what went on, but nobody gossiped about it.

She flicked his shoulder with her finger. “Do you mind if I take a good look? I can’t help it, I’m dying of curiosity,” she said.

“What are you talking about?”

“I’ve never seen a man who wasn’t circumcised before. Only babies.”

“Oh good lord,” he said, face reddening, but he didn’t stop her from throwing back the covers. After a moment, she said judiciously, “very interesting.” She smiled. “And growing more interesting all the time…” She sighed and sank back down next to him, saying teasingly, “but I have to go soon. If I come home too long after the party ends, the servants will notice.”

“How soon?” he asked, kissing her throat.

“Oh, not right away,” she said vaguely. “An hour, maybe….”

“Good.”

***

This time she left first, after putting herself together very carefully. Edmund found this process fascinating; he had never watched a woman get dressed before. Nymphs never wore much to begin with, and the Duchess of Galma had a maid who always came to wake him at dawn and send him back to his own room. He tried to pull Lasaraleen back into the bed, but she slapped his hand away, then kissed him, wrapped her headscarf securely around her to hide her face, and left. 

Edmund lay back in the bed and stretched. She had asked him to wait so nobody would see them together, but he was afraid he might fall asleep, so he got up and dressed. After a while he decided it was safe to leave and started walking back to the palace. He returned by the same side door as before, winking again at the guard and tossing him a coin. He could still hear voices as he passed near the hall. He navigated to his apartments and washed very carefully; it would not do to smell of her perfume. Indoor plumbing was a wonderful convenience, and he wished they had it at Cair Paravel. It was one of the few things he missed about England. He couldn’t do anything about his clothes, but they were not as strongly perfumed, so he hoped his valet would assume that this was the result of his mingling with the guests at the party. He went to bed feeling better than he had in a long time. Cair Paravel could be very, very lonely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got the idea for this from a throw-away line in the episode where Aravis is with Lasaraleen in Tashbaan. Lasaraleen says, "...some of the Narnian _men_ are lovely. I was taken out on a river party the day before yesterday, and I was wearing my—" Then Aravis interrupts her. So, who was she talking about, and just what happened during that river party?


	2. Sequelae

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lasaraleen has worries.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Discussion of abortion as an option.

Lasaraleen vowed to herself that she would never again go anywhere without her pessary. If only she’d had it with her at the party that night, she wouldn’t be in this mess now. At first she hadn’t worried too much about it—it was just one time. Well, two times. And she’d had the pessary at the other tryst they'd managed to arrange. But of course once was enough. It was all his fault, really, for lying to her and saying it had to be that night. Brute! She should have insisted on waiting until the next day. But she hadn’t wanted to miss her chance, as she had two years before. He was so beautiful, so exotic. Not just from the north, from another world! Of course you couldn’t tell by looking at a man whether he was going to be any good in bed—sometimes beautiful men were rather dull. But not this one. At least she had had a good time.

She wasn’t even certain who the father of her baby was. As soon as her husband came back from the estate she made certain they went to bed, so that if she _had_ gotten stuffed he would have no reason to doubt the child was his. If it was his then she could stop worrying. And if it wasn’t, she still might be able to manage. Her husband, who came from the western province of Darden, was rather light-skinned, so the baby’s complexion might not matter too much. It was the hair and eyes and facial features that were the problem. Hair could be dyed and straightened (and wouldn’t _that_ be a headache to keep up, year in, year out). But she didn’t think there was anything she could do about eyes—or nose, or lips, or…. Well, if the baby looked too much like Edmund, she would just have to bribe the midwife to say it had died and pay some peasant family to raise it. The thought of doing that made her sad, but it was the only really good alternative: if her husband found out, the baby would be killed, and she didn’t even want to think about what would happen to her.

I ought to have aborted as soon as I knew for certain I was stuffed, she thought. But she had rather hoped she might miscarry, and by the time it became clear that the baby was probably not going to conveniently dispose of itself, the midwife said it was too late. Why had she waited until it was too late? Stupid! Because sometimes she thought she wanted this baby. And sometimes she thought she didn’t. She’d wanted it just enough to make her hesitate. The poets had all sorts of things to say about the folly of haste and the virtue of patience and faith. Well, by the Eleven Bloody Hells of Tash, what did _they_ know? Nothing about what it was like to have a baby growing inside you, that was for certain.

And in the meantime, that _stupid_ privateer had attacked that _stupid_ Narnian merchant ship, and negotiations on restoring diplomatic relations came to a standstill, and Edmund—no, not Edmund, the Barbarian King, emphasis on _Barbarian_ —wouldn’t be coming back to Calormen for who knew how long. She had no way to get a message to him, and even if she did, what would she tell him? No, it was better to wait it out, hope for the best, prepare for the worst. If she ever saw him again (with her pessary!), she could decide how much to tell him. If anything.

She should probably sacrifice a rabbit, or a goat—some poor animal, anyway—if only she knew which goddess watched over women who had decided that virtue was overrated. There had to be at least one. Maybe the midwife would know.

When I decide on the proper sacrifice, I’ll pray that the baby looks like me, she thought. _Exactly_ like me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A contraceptive pessary is a barrier method of contraception, usually involving some kind of spermicide. Contraceptive pessaries were the forerunners of the modern contraceptive sponge, diaphragm, cervical cap, etc. They were used in ancient Egypt, and probably long before then, in one form or another, all around the world.
> 
> When I reread _A Horse and His Boy_ as an adult, I saw Lasaraleen differently than I had as a child. She's vain and frivolous, but she's also a very loyal friend, even though her previous friendship with Aravis doesn't seem to have been especially close. She doesn't understand Aravis's motivation for escaping, but she doesn't appear to even consider betraying her. She discusses plans for getting Aravis out of the city quite shrewdly and comes up with a clever plan, a plan that ultimately works exactly the way it's supposed to. Aravis finds her irritating (which I can certainly understand) and treats her very shabbily, only apologizing rather perfunctorily as they say good-bye, leaving Las to manage a very dangerous situation all by herself. So I decided that Lasaraleen had to be smarter and than she seems. 
> 
> In Sign of the Pheasant she's still only 17, and she makes a dumb mistake that many teenagers, even clever ones, have made. (And of course Edmund, who is in his 20's, is perfectly happy to assume that she has everything taken care of. Men!)
> 
> There are a number of different strategies for living within an oppressive system: rebel, escape, submit. Or you can work the system, and I think that's what Lasaraleen does. In my version of events, she decided on a husband for herself and then manipulated her father into believing he'd picked him for her. She keeps her husband happy (she doesn't love him, but she doesn't dread going to bed with him, either), and she takes every opportunity to enjoy herself with other men. Her behavior isn't admirable, but it's not stupid or submissive or passive, either.
> 
> And in case this all seems very Orientalist, I'm hampered by trying to stay consistent with the book. But also (again, in my version of events) conditions for women in the northern countries aren't that much better, and in some ways are worse—they don't have such good forms of contraception, for example, and midwifery and gynecological medicine are much less advanced.
> 
> I have more to say on the subject of women in the Narnia books, but as this note has become as long as the chapter to which it is attached, I will leave off.


	3. Cold Comfort

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucy puts her foot down.

When one of her siblings was angry with her, Lucy felt lower than low. And now Ed was so angry that she feared he might never forgive her. She knew she was right. Why did it make her feel so awful?

“You’re threatening me,” he cried. And “This is extortion!” He was right about that, she admitted it. But she couldn’t let him marry Lamille. She couldn’t.

From the time the subject first came up, not that long after they were crowned kings and queens of Narnia, she had been convinced that none of them should ever marry. Not here. They didn’t know how or when they might be called back to the other world. The gray world. The world of iron, cement, machines, explosions, and helpless terror. The world where everything beautiful was being destroyed, if it hadn’t been already. Where the green places were shrinking away, and places of refuge, like the professor’s house, were isolated and fragile. If they had husbands, wives, or children here, they would have to leave them behind—or else, even worse, drag them into the horrors that lay on the other side of the wardrobe. 

No. 

In the end it was what Susan called “L’affaire Rabadash” that made the others agree. When Su and Ed were in Calormen, Lucy prayed every night that Su would realize her mistake and come back. And she had come back, and there was bloodshed, and Su vowed she would never marry. Lucy, comforting her distraught and humiliated sister, was secretly overjoyed. She urged the boys to make the same vow. Even Edmund agreed, although he said it was terrible politics, and now four years had passed and he wanted to go back on his word! “What about an heir?” he wanted to know. “If we do have to go back, and we don’t leave an heir, there’ll be a tremendous power vacuum!” But that was specious. They could designate an heir. There were plenty to choose from: Narnian nobles, the Archenlanders, the Galmans. There were whole cadet branches of the royal family of the Seven Isles who could be called in to found a new dynasty! (This was an advantage of counting female and male descent as equal: never a lack of heirs.) She and her siblings didn’t need an heir of their own flesh.

More worrisome was Ed's other question: “What if we stay here for the rest of our lives?” She had no answer for this.

Finally she told Ed that he must choose between her and Lamille. It had been a near thing, but in the end he chose his sister. So he couldn't be so _very_ much in love, could he? Lamille would marry Lord Narien in the morning and then leave for the Lone Islands, while Ed brooded upstairs. Lamille was Lucy’s friend, too. The Lone Islands were far away, and they might not see each other for years. Or never.

She knew she was right. They must none of them marry. But although Ed had chosen her over Lamille, now he was so angry with her that things between them might never be the same. In a little while she would go to him and try to make amends. If he let her, she would comfort him. He was going on a diplomatic trip to Calormen in a few weeks, and she didn't want to let him go when things were still like this between them.

The irony was that the vow was harder on Lucy than it was on any of the others, because she was the only one who had remained chaste, the only one who still held to the principle that physical love should be reserved for marriage. The others had all made their compromises. They thought she didn’t know, but she did. Of course she did. First Susan had succumbed, then Ed, and finally, after a long and painful struggle, Peter. She knew they were wrong to do it, but she did understand. She had the same desires. Sometimes, at the Summer Festival, she was tempted to wander away into the woods with one of the satyrs. It would be so easy, and nobody would ever know. But of course she would know. And Aslan would know.

Men courted her and she refused them, never allowing more than a few kisses in the moonlight. She was chaste, and people called her cold, a prude, a little girl who refused to grow up. Or, grotesquely, they said that she was the bride of Aslan and that mortal men meant nothing to her. How could people say such things, think such things? She could only persevere because she knew she was right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't think it ever occurred to me as a child, but when I reread the Narnia books as an adult I wondered why none of the Pevensies married while they were in Narnia. It doesn't make a lot of sense, does it? This was the best explanation I could come up with.


	4. Sashti

By the time Sashti was a year old, Lasaraleen was beginning to believe that she had gotten away with her deception. Nobody suspected that Sashti wasn't her husband's son. Everybody said he looked like Lasaraleen, and it was true. Not exactly like, of course: his skin was lighter than hers, almost the same shade as her husband's, though his eyes and hair had turned out dark. His hair was wavy, but not so curly that she had to straighten it. His eyes were an unusual shape, so she told people that they were just like her father's eyes. It amazed her, how if you repeated something enough times, people would start to believe it! Of course, it helped that her father had died two months before Sashti's birth, and that, being a devout follower of Viziroth, he had never had a portrait made of himself. So nobody could check. All Lasaraleen had to do was ignore her mother's puzzled looks and lie, lie, lie, until the lie became truth. 

When her father died she exaggerated her very real grief, mourning extravagantly over the tragedy that her father would never see his grandchild. Then, when it came time to name her son, nobody questioned her desire to name him after his grandfather, instead of his father, as was customary with a firstborn son. Even her husband didn't press the issue.

Instead of sending the baby out to be wet-nursed, she had the wet-nurse come to live with them. The nursery was on the very same corridor as her own bedroom. This was almost unheard of, and some of her friends thought it vulgar, but she didn't care. She needed to keep the baby close so that she could keep an eye on him, make sure that as he grew older he didn't start to look more Northern. He was a lovely little fellow. Her husband was pleased that she was so fond of him.

Now she was pregnant again, and this time she had no doubt that her husband was the father. She didn't exactly feel guilty for deceiving him. She had been deceiving him almost from the day they were married, after all, so why start feeling guilty about it now? But she did feel that she owed him something. He wanted another child, maybe two, and she thought it was a reasonable enough desire. 

But she wasn't thinking so much about that, because Edmund would be in Tashbaan in just a few days. When it appeared certain that normal diplomatic relations would finally be restored he had arranged a way to send messages so that they could plan a meeting. The first she knew of this was when a bird lit on her window sill and spoke to her, and she nearly jumped out of her skin! Of course, she knew the message had to be from Edmund, but all the bird had told her was the location of the dead drop where the letter could be found. Once she recovered from her first shock she told the bird what a little darling it was, but it wouldn't let her touch it.

She hoped Edmund wouldn't be squeamish about the idea of making love to a woman who was pregnant with another man's child. Well, she wasn't really showing yet, so probably she just wouldn't tell him. At least she wouldn't need the pessary, which was a bit ironic, really.

She had decided not to tell him about Sashti. What would be the point? Why torture him by telling him he had a son, when he could never be a father to him? There was virtually no danger that they would ever meet. It would have been different if she had not been able to raise Sashti herself, and had had to put him in the care of a peasant family. In that case, she would have told Edmund so that he could decide whether he wanted to take the boy north with him. Sometimes, on warm nights when she couldn't sleep, she thought up schemes for how to spirit the baby away to Edmund's ship without getting caught. It was an interesting problem. But it was only a game, because she wasn't going to tell him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A dead drop is used in espionage to send messages without the sender and recipient having to meet. The message is left in an agreed-upon location and some sort of signal is used to tell the recipient when a message is waiting.


	5. Forgiveness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Edmund and Lasaraleen meet again in Tashbaan.

It had been nearly two years since they had last seen each other, and both of them had changed. 

He was already waiting when she arrived. He looks so tired, she thought, putting her arms around him. Neither of them said much. He held her very gently, kissing her and stroking her hair. After a while they lay down. He was being so gentle, so slow, so deliberate. She liked it, but it was so different from the last time that she lay back and started to say something to him. Then she saw that his eyes were shut. She swallowed what she’d been about to say. He continued to treat her as though she were fragile, and she imagined that she was, letting him take the lead, responding demurely. She tried to remember what it had been like to be a virgin, but it was so long ago. Besides, her husband hadn’t been particularly gentle with her. Nobody ever had been.

She wasn’t going to say anything to him about it, but when he finally looked at her, his expression was so melancholy, and then so guilty, that she had to speak. She wrapped her arms around him and spoke into his shoulder.

“Do you love her very much?”

His arms stiffened. “What—”

“The woman you were making love to just now, I mean. You must love her very much.”

He pulled away and stared at her, mortified.

“Darling, did you think I wouldn’t notice?" she asked. "When I’m with my husband I never open my eyes if I can help it." She laughed. "I’ve imagined he was _you_ any number of times.” 

“It’s not that I don’t…want to be here with you,” he said.

“I know,” she said, but he didn’t seem reassured. “Oh, don’t look so upset—we have so little time together, what’s the sense in wasting it feeling jealous, or guilty, or angry, or whatever we’re _supposed_ to be feeling?”

He examined her face intently. “You’re a very generous woman,” he said.

She laughed again. “What do you mean by that?” 

“Oh, just…you've forgiven me, without my even having to ask...”

“You’ve obviously had a difficult time since we last saw each other. And I’ve had my own troubles. Why shouldn’t we be kind to each other?”

“What kind of troubles?” he asked.

She hesitated for a moment. Maybe she should tell him. But the last thing she wanted now was to start explaining. “Oh, I’ll tell you some time," she said, "but not now. I don’t want to think about it right now.”

“All right.” He kissed her. "And I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that...before..."

"No, you shouldn't have. It's terrible manners to invite another woman into bed with us without asking me first! But I forgive you."

"Thank you...I'll try to deserve it."

“You’re so tired. Why don’t you sleep?”

“Well, as you said, we don’t have a lot of time….”

“I’ll wake you up in a little while. When I get bored. Come on,” she went on, arranging a pillow for him, “Get comfortable.”

His face still wore a puzzled expression, but he dropped off to sleep quickly.

She woke him after about an hour. “Are you ready to be with _me_ now?” she asked. 

“Oh, yes,” he said.


	6. Unsuitable

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nobody who knew him would think she was the kind of woman he'd be drawn to.

When he thought about it later, it seemed very peculiar to Edmund that he had sought out Lasaraleen in Tashbaan two years after their first, brief encounter at the river party. Why had he even remembered her? She was beautiful and wanton, but that was hardly unique; if that was all he wanted, there were easier ways to find it. Almost from the first, he knew there was more to her than it appeared: she was clever, kind, and (within limits) brave. Her quick-wittedness had saved them from discovery on the river boat, and after he returned to the north he learned how she had helped Aravis get out of Tashbaan, despite not understanding Aravis's motives, and despite her quite reasonable fear of what would happen to her if they were caught. But he didn't think that was the reason he was drawn to her, either. Perhaps it was because she was so obviously unsuitable, even for a casual affair. Nobody who knew him would think her the kind of woman he would seek out. None of his siblings would ever meet her, and if they did, he knew they would find her appalling. The thought of her in the same room with Lucy was ludicrous. She had nothing to do with his life at Cair Paravel, and she never would.

But he wasn't sure that was enough to explain why, after giving up Lamille, and after his imperfectly repaired rupture with Lucy, he had again sought out Lasaraleen. Another two years had passed without any word between them—why had it seemed so important to see her as soon as possible after he arrived in Tashbaan? Was it for physical comfort? Undoubtedly that was part of it. But perhaps he had also intuited that she wouldn't judge him, that she wouldn't care that he was (or had been) in love with another woman. Indeed, she _hadn't_ judged him. She had forgiven him for bringing Lamille into bed with them, and she had been kind to him when he didn't deserve it. She asked so little of him that it made him want to give more.

The next time he saw her she was obviously pregnant, and for a moment he nearly panicked—was this the result of their last encounter? But then he realized that she was too far along, that she must have already been pregnant when they were together a few months earlier. "Do you mind?" she asked. He was surprised to find that he didn't. "No," he said, "but for a moment I was worried it was mine." A few years later, when she finally told him about Sashti, he looked back on this moment with sadness. How it must have hurt her to hear him say that! But she just laughed and said "No, no, this one is definitely my husband's." At the time, it didn't occur to him that "this one" was an odd way to phrase it.

Their relationship was almost entirely physical. Their only conversations were pillow talk. During the next three years he traveled frequently to Calormen, and they met whenever he was in Tashbaan, but there were only a couple of occasions when they were able to spend more than a few hours at a time together. Once they managed to arrange a week together at Lake Ilkeen, at a villa owned by a friend of a friend of hers. That was the first time they ever talked much about their lives. She told him about her family, which, like a lot of noble Calormene families, had a wide spread of ages: her oldest half brother, the son of her father and his first wife, was over 40, and the younger of her two little sisters was only six. Her mother, a widow at 33, had remarried about a year after her father's death and was now pregnant. This was the first time she spoke to him of her son Sashti—until then, Edmund had not realized that the new baby was not her first child. She talked a lot about Sashti that week, and Edmund didn't see any significance to it—only that, like many parents, she doted on her firstborn. Of her husband she said little, except that he was dull.

They both enjoyed the week, but by the end of it they were starting to irritate each other. She had become important to him—in a way, he loved her—but it was obvious that there were limits to what their relationship could be. Perhaps that was another reason he was drawn to her.

About a year and a half after Cor and Aravis were married, they traveled to Calormen with their baby to spend a month at her father's estate in Calavar. Aravis mentioned off-handedly to Edmund that her old friend Lasaraleen was coming to visit them with her two sons. Edmund, who had traveled as far as Tashbaan with them, and who was planning to go down to Calavar to meet with Kidrash anyway, managed to arrange things so that he would be there at the estate at the same time as Lasaraleen. It seemed a golden opportunity. But then he got a message from Lasaraleen, saying she needed to see him before he left Tashbaan. He was surprised, because he hadn't thought she was in the city just then, but he didn't realize there was anything wrong until he opened the door with the seven-pointed star and found her sitting on the bed, crying.

He sat down next to her and put an arm around her and asked what was the matter. He had never seen her cry before, and now she wasn't just crying, but incoherent. She was saying something about how she could have changed her plans, but she thought it was time for him to know.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Las. What's wrong?"

She wiped her face and drew a breath and said "Sashti..."

"Is he ill?" Edmund asked.

"No, he's _yours_ ," she said, sounding exasperated. "Ours, anyway," she amended.

It took another moment for her meaning to sink in. And then all the pieces started coming together. She had been dropping hints for years, and he hadn't understood.

For once, they spent more time talking than in bed.


	7. A Chance Meeting on the Road

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sashti remembers.

Sashti had only one memory of meeting King Edmund of Narnia, but in this memory the king didn't seem like a stranger, so he wondered if they had met before. When he finally worked up the courage to ask his mother about it she said that he had met the king several times, but the last meeting was the only one he was old enough to remember.

He was six. He and his mother were on their way from somewhere to somewhere else, in a carriage driven by his mother's slave Dorkut. They met the king on the road, as if by chance. He was riding toward them on a horse, a tall, pale man with funny eyes and curly light brown hair. They stopped, and Sashti and his mother got out of the carriage. The king dismounted and walked toward them. Sashti could tell that both his mother and the king were anxious. The king crouched down and talked to him. Then he took Sashti by the hand and they walked up and down by the side of the road for a while. Years later, no matter how he racked his brains, Sashti couldn't remember what they talked about. At the time, the main thing that concerned him was what happened as they drove away: his mother started to cry. This upset him, and she must have realized it because she dried her eyes and cuddled him and promised him an ice when they got wherever they were going. He knew he was being bribed, but there didn't seem to be anything he could do about it. And besides, he liked ices.

**Author's Note:**

> I was just rereading this (October 22, 2014) and decided that chapters 8-10 needed a lot of rewriting, so I have taken them down. Just in case you were wondering what happened to them.


End file.
